Procedural resources are vital for the prosecution of cases before courts and tribunals. These resources range from case-relevant legislation – including the legislation establishing the court or tribunal – to the rules of procedure and decided cases of the court or tribunal. They ground arguments, and guide and assist lawyers in making compelling cases. Claims can fail or succeed depending on the procedural resources available and accessible to litigants. Fairness dictates that these procedural resources be readily available to all litigants who need them, not just to lawyers.

Litigants represented by lawyers have little-to-no worries regarding these procedural tools. Their . . . [more]

On March 3, 2022, the Arctic Council became the latest collateral casualty to the Russian invasion in Ukraine. A mere week after Russian troops began invading and bombarding Ukraine, seven members of the Arctic Council (Canada, United States, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland) condemned the belligerent actions of its eighth member, Russia. Their condemnation also included pausing the work of the Council as well as all of its subsidiaries immediately and until further notice. The indefinite hold on the activities of such an important forum for international cooperation will inevitably have severe impact regionally and internationally on salient topics, . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Finding Alberta Government Publications
Susannah Tredwell

If you’re trying to find an Alberta government publication one very helpful resource is Alberta’s open government portal. … . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT): Les extraits des propos de l’appelant cités par le juge de première instance n’étaient pas pertinents relativement à la question de la culpabilité, alors que ce dernier devait circonscrire les aspects précis permettant d’inférer chez l’appelant l’intention spécifique de nuire à l’exercice des attributions du policier; par conséquent, . . . [more]

Written by Lewis Waring, Paralegal and Student-at-Law, First Reference Editor

In Canadian Pacific Railway v United Steelworkers – TC Local 1976 (“Canadian Pacific”), an employer’s dismissal of an employee who committed a safety infraction while intoxicated with cannabis was upheld as reasonable. The safety-sensitive nature of the workplace, the employee’s history of intoxication and the lack of any connection to medical or addiction issues were key factors in a labour arbitrator’s decision to uphold the employee’s dismissal. . . . [more]

For a while during the pandemic, online hearings were the only option for courts and tribunals. Justice was done on Zoom, or else it wasn’t done at all.

Now, as we emerge from the age of Covid (knock on wood!), online vs. in-person is a recurring controversy across Ontario’s justice sector. After the Superior Court of Justice ordered most contested family law matters to return to court, a group of family bar lawyers organized in defence of the online option. By contrast, the Landlord and Tenant Board is insisting on fully online practice, while the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario . . . [more]

Lately, there has been an explosion of court documents being rejected from filing. Reasons for rejection are numerous. There is almost no discernible pattern. Reasons include, but are not limited to:

• failure to provide a back page,
• submitting documents separately when they should be combined,
• failing to have a witness to an electronic signature (not to be confused with a commissioned document),
• a form is missing,
• information is missing on the form,
• disapproving of the affiant’s signature, and so forth.

It is speculated that the change in staffing at the courts is the cause for the increase in rejections. (E.g. . . . [more]

This for you who don’t love the law. You often wonder if you should do something else, if you chose the right career path, if you have wasted a big chunk of your life as a mercenary of justice. If you divvy up your time the way you want to, your priorities would be ordered from highest to lowest: family, travel, exercise, beach, reading, work, Netflix. But an accounting of how you actually spend your time shows your priorities are backwards, starting with work and work-friends, then moving on to Netflix and sports-watching, and last and least, family. Reflecting on . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week, the most-consulted three English-language decisions were:

1. O’Chiese First Nation v DLA Piper (Canada) LLP, 2022 ABCA 197

[11] In this unusual situation, we must assume that the Minister of Justice worded his Order to address a widespread sweep of time limits and limitation periods necessary for the operation and effectiveness of scores of statutes and associated regulations, including the Rules. Moreover, . . . [more]

For many, creating content can seem like an intimidating task. With over 130,000 lawyers in Canada, finding a way to stand out is imperative to building a book of business. Creating content is a tool all lawyers have available to them but very few know how to strategically include content creation in building their profile and, in turn, their book of business.

If you use content creation to build your profile, one of your key goals should be in anticipating what client wants to read next, and how to get your expertise out to that network. For marketing, providing information . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Neil Guthrie

The slash is more correctly called the solidus, the oblique or the virgule. We see it in URLs all the time. It is much older than the interweb, of course. … . . . [more]